4. Double-click on “Allow Telemetry” and select Enabled option in the new window. Now you can set its value to any of following options from the drop-down list:

0 – Security

1 – Basic

2 – Enhanced

3 – Full

People suggest to set the option to “0 – Security” to completely disable telemetry and data collection in Windows 10.

METHOD 2: Disable Telemetry in Windows 10 Using Registry Editor

Above mentioned method cannot be used in Windows 10 Core or Home edition as this edition doesn’t contain Group Policy Editor. If you are using Home edition of Windows 10 or if you can’t use or don’t want to use Group Policy Editor, you can take help of Registry Editor for the same task. Just follow these simple steps:

1. Press WIN+R keys together to launch RUN dialog box. Now type regedit in RUN and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor.

2. Now go to following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\

3. Create a new key under Windows key and set its name as DataCollection

4. Now in right-side pane, create a new DWORD AllowTelemetry and set its value to any of following:

0 (To set telemetry settings to security only)

1 (To set telemetry settings to Basic)

2 (To set telemetry settings to Enhanced)

3 (To set telemetry settings to Full)

People suggest to set the value to 0 to completely disable telemetry and data collection in Windows 10.

Close Registry Editor and restart your computer to take effect.

What Exactly Does This Trick Change?

This trick disables changing telemetry option in Settings app. Actually you can set what type of diagnostic and usage data should be collected and sent by Windows 10 using Settings app.

1. Open Settings app from Start Menu or by pressing WIN+I keys together.

2. Now go to “Privacy -> Feedback & diagnostics” and here you can select your desired option from drop-down list.

It allows you to set the option to any of following:

Basic

Enhanced

Full

As you can see the “Security” option is not present in the drop-down list. That’s why people suggest to use the above mentioned Group Policy or Registry trick to set the telemetry option to “Security” which sends the minimal data to Microsoft.

Once you apply the trick, the option to change diagnostic and usage data in Settings app becomes grayed out and you can’t change the option. The page also shows “Some settings are managed by your organization” message at the top of the page.

Truth Behind This Group Policy or Registry Trick

If you are using Windows 10 (Core/Home) or Windows 10 Pro edition, this trick to set telemetry option to 0 – Security is useless for you. Microsoft has mentioned clearly in the description of “Allow Telemetry” option in Group Policy Editor that setting the option to “0 – Security” on Windows 10 Home or Pro editions is equivalent to settings it to “1 – Basic” which you can always change using Settings app without using Group Policy Editor or Registry Editor.

So if you are using Enterprise, Education, Server or IoT editions of Windows 10, then you can apply this trick to set the diagnostic and usage data collection to minimal (security data only) but if you are using Windows 10 Home or Pro editions, this trick will not work for you.